A fourth brother filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America and Cascade Pacific Council today (Multnomah Co. Circuit Court Case No. 18CV10468), alleging that he was repeatedly sexually abused by a Scoutmaster, the notorious pedophile Clyde Brock, in the 1960s. The four brothers were all abused by Brock when he was an adult volunteer in Troop 220 in Oregon City.
Attorneys Gilion Dumas and Ashley Vaughn filed the lawsuit today in Multnomah County Circuit Court. The man, proceeding under the pseudonym R.R., is the fifth man to sue for abuse by Brock. Three of the other four men to file earlier lawsuits are brothers of this man.
Oregon, like many other states, has extended its statute of limitations for civil and criminal cases involving child abuse. Adults who were sexually abused as children can file a civil lawsuit in Oregon before they turn 40 against the perpetrator or an organization that knowingly allowed or permitted the abuse. Even after victims turn 40, they can file a lawsuit within five years of when they knew or should have known of the connection between injuries caused by the abuse and the childhood abuse. “The law recognizes that victims of child abuse often do not make a connection between lifelong problems such as substance abuse, depression, and anger issues and earlier child abuse,” Dumas said.
Brock was kicked out of the Boy Scouts in 1968 when two boys in his troop accused him of sexually molesting them and ten other boys, although official Scout documents show that the Scouts covered up the reasons for Brock’s “resignation.” R.R. was molested for approximately one year, beginning in 1967, and may have been one of the ten boys identified by the two who came forward in 1968.
Brock’s Boy Scout Ineligible Volunteer File (“IV File”) was one of over 1,200 BSA “Perversion Files” that the Oregon Supreme Court ordered made public in 2012. It was one of the files considered by the jury in the 2010 Kerry Lewis trial in Portland before the jury awarded over $18 million in punitive damages against BSA. Dumas was one of the trial attorneys representing Lewis in that case.
“Brock’s IV File is one of the worst in the country and the worst in Oregon,” said Dumas. BSA created Brock’s IV File after receiving reports from two boys in Brock’s troop that Brock had sexual relations with them and possibly ten other boys in the Troop. Faced with this information, BSA allowed Brock to “resign” in exchange for BSA agreeing to not “investigate” by talking to the ten other boys or their parents. “The BSA agreed to keep parents of the molested boys in the dark to protect a credibly accused child molester and its own reputation,” said Ms. Dumas.
Even worse, Brock’s IV File shows that BSA had prior notice that Brock was a danger to children. The file notes that Brock had been “called to task” two times before for taking naked pictures of children, some with nude adults. Although BSA acknowledged that taking nude photos of kids “could not be condoned” by “Scouting’s leadership,” Scout leadership did condone Brock’s conduct by not kicking him out of Scouting when they first had notice of his nude photography.
Even after BSA forced Brock to resign, they encouraged and assisted in a cover up of the fact that he had been accused of sexually molesting 12 boys in his troop. BSA allowed Brock to claim he had resigned because of high blood pressure. After he resigned, the Scout Executive of the local Council wrote to suggest that, “while [Brock] should be encouraged to have no further contact at troop meetings, outings, etc., I can see no reason why he shouldn’t be recognized at the 50th anniversary celebration[.]” He thought it “would help to ally questions about his retirement from the troop,” emphasizing that “the less it is discussed among adults and boys . . . the better it will be.”
“It is hard to imagine the destruction caused to those 12 boys and their families by the cover up of Brock’s crimes,” Dumas said. It seems clear from Brock’s IV File that no one involved in Scouting reported Brock’s crimes to the police or to the parents of the 10 boys identified as likely victims.
Brock went on to molest and sexually exploit other boys. In 1971, he was indicted in Clackamas County for fondling an 11-year-old boy and indicted on two counts in Jefferson County for fondling two ten-year-old boys. When Brock was arrested, police seized hundreds of photograph slides of nude boys and adults, and pornographic magazines and books, many featuring young boys. Brock pled guilty to one count in Clackamas County and one count in Jefferson County.
In 1965, the BSA had awarded Brock the Silver Beaver award, one of BSA’s most prestigious honors for Scout volunteers. The Scouts did nothing to rescind the award after he was accused of, and later convicted of, sexually molesting children. Brock tried to re-register as a Scout volunteer in 1978 and 1982. Brock died in 2001.
In the current lawsuit, R.R. alleges that Brock abused his position of trust and respect as a Scoutmaster to sexually abuse him. Brock frequently took Scouts hiking, camping, and swimming in the summers. He encouraged Scouts to swim nude, took nude photographs of them, and fondled them while they were swimming. Brock frequently hosted Scouts at his house for troop meetings and sleepovers, where he encouraged the boys to hang out and sleep with him in the nude. He showed them slideshows of nude photographs of young boys and adults. During sleepovers with R.R. and his brothers, Brock raped and molested R.R.
R.R. makes claims against the Defendants for sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and fraud. He will ask the Court to add a claim for punitive damages when the rules allow. His case asks for a maximum amount of $9 million, although it will be up to the jury to decide the actual amount to award. “In the end, this is about righting a wrong that was done to me, my brothers, and our whole family. It is about holding BSA accountable for not protecting boys in Scouts for decades,” said R.R.
Dumas notes that Brock volunteered for Boy Scouts for over 30 years and had many more victims, including the ten boys mentioned in his IV File, and that there are likely many more witnesses with information. “We want these witnesses or other survivors to know, that if they come forward, they will be listened to and treated with respect.”